


I've got a secret

by MostFacinorous



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Anal Sex, Emotional Roller Coaster, Fingering, First Time, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Magic, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Science, Secret Identity, Sweet Sex, Tentacles, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Torture, non human Carlos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-25 09:37:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostFacinorous/pseuds/MostFacinorous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos isn't who or what anyone thinks he is. And it's about to come out in the worst way possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It took a while for the town to get to him. He knew his superiors hadn’t counted on that being the case. They’d sent him because they didn’t think it would be able to turn him, to make him belong there. His very being, after all, was completely against its existence. He ran on logic, and on things making sense.

Night Vale didn’t make sense, but somehow that was charming.

He was out with Cecil, which was his favorite thing to do, lately.

Cecil was telling him about the station cat and how the kittens had discovered a fun game in ricocheting a ping pong ball back and forth through the air in the mens’ bathroom, and how one of the interns had been specifically assigned to keeping the toy within easy reach of at least one of the kittens at all times.

Not an easy task, since gravity seemed to apply just fine to the ping pong ball.

Carlos felt a pull in muscles in his cheeks until his lips went taut, then parted, and he felt the warm air of a laugh bubbling up his throat. It was freeing; until Night Vale, he hadn't ever laughed like this.

He hadn’t heard from the people who had sent him in some time, either. Their communications had cut out about the time he started questioning his orders, started explaining to them that not everything made sense; here, it didn’t need to.

Which was right around the time he’d been here for a year.

But that was a month and a half ago, now. He was happy, even if he did need to find a job, because the funding for his work had stopped coming in. Maybe he could work for Big Rico, since it was so conveniently next door to his lab. If he could afford to keep it. But he decided not to worry about that just yet.  

He was happy, and that… was huge, for him. He’d never realized he wasn’t, before coming here. He’d never realized how much he was missing out on. He was just glad not to have to go back, now.

That said, it left him with a secret that he knew he ought to tell Cecil. Cecil was completely open with him, and it was awful of him to be anything but reciprocating.  

That in mind, he had asked Cecil out today. They hadn’t made any real plans, and were walking down the street together, just glad to be together, holding hands. Talking. It was comfortable.

It seemed nice right up until a white van came hurtling down the road toward them.

That wasn’t all that unusual, really. Though, generally speaking, the vans tended to have… official insignia of some sort on them? And be black?

Still, Night Valeians had long ago learned not to ask questions. So Carlos followed suit and they just kept strolling, until the Van pulled sideways in front of them, parking on the sidewalk, stopping their progress, and terrifying the hooded figure ahead of them so much that it actually dropped the child it had been in the process of abducting.

The door with the STREXcorp logo on it slid open, and Carlos gasped. He saw the men pouring out of the van to surround them, and began speaking quickly, though he was afraid it was much too late, now.

“Cecil, I… meant to tell you today. You uh. You know I’m not from here. I’m… from Desert Bluffs, and—“

Cecil dropped his hand as though he’d been burned. Carlos felt the hollowness of his chest suddenly.

“Carlos. I’m afraid we need to ask you to come with us.” The scientist managed to sound simultaneously cheerful and disapproving.

“Of course—Cecil, I’m so sorry. I—“ But he had turned his back on the Scientist, and all he felt was a hand on his ear, and then it went black.

-*-

When the van interrupted their date, Cecil tried to figure out why, before anything else. They had filed all of the correct pre-date paperwork, he was up on his bills, and he’d just been re-educated the week prior. He should be good to go. And of course his Perfect Carlos wouldn’t have done anything that the City Council could possibly disapprove of—

He was amused, initially, when the van’s occupants slid out, and he saw them in their riot gear covered with lab coats. He imagined this to be some sort of clever science community hazing ritual for new couples.

And then he learned the truth.

Or the first bit of truth for the evening.

He backed away from Carlos, unable to decide if he was disgusted that the man he loved had been one of _them_ , or if he was embarrassed and guilty for having so often vilified people that Carlos must have known, right under his nose.

The Scientist in charge told Carlos he’d have to leave, then, and Cecil had immediately stepped forward again—but not fast enough. The Scientist had pressed his fingers against the side of Carlos’s head, sliding open a panel, and thumbed a blinking light housed in metal, inside of Carlos’s head.

“NO.” Cecil yelled, and two more scientists came out to restrain him, grabbing at his arms while the Lead Scientist lowered Carlos to the ground and set about casually undressing him. Cecil was horrified—even he hadn’t done that yet, who did they think they were? And with him passed out and in public, as well! He tried to yell at them about Night Vale’s consent laws, but a hand covered his mouth and another wrapped around to squeeze his neck.

The horror was compounded once Carlos was down to his tighty whiteys, when the Scientist moved on to disconnecting his legs from his torso and his arms from his shoulders, with simple twists and calm thunks that said Carlos had been designed to be taken apart that way.

Cecil fought back, though—it didn’t matter that he couldn’t wrap his mind around how many pieces Carlos was in, or what his insides were made of, or where he came from—that was still Carlos, and they were still taking him away.

He couldn’t pull his arms free so he sprouted his tentacles, shaking them out and using them to break the Scientists’ grips on his arms.

He rushed forward, clinging resolutely to Carlos’s torso, the only part of him not yet loaded into the dark interior of their vehicle. He wrapped every part of himself around him, and held on.

A cold rod fought its way through the squirming extremities on his back. The moment it touched the back of his neck, he smelled electrical heat and felt every muscle in his body tense, then go slack, and he was only barely conscious of being lifted and loaded into the van, before the Scientists slid the doors shut, darkness enveloped him, and they drove off.

-*-

“And so Night Vale, thank you for calling in with your tips. It seems I will be launching a rescue mission as soon as possible.”

Station management had called her in, and Dana, whose life was very much built around being as reliable as possible, had hopped the fence of the dog park (with some help from the man in the tan jacket) and reported in to take over as the temporary voice of Night Vale.

But pretty much the entire show so far had been dedicated to digging into the mystery of what witnesses had seen.

They reported that Carlos had been torn limb from limb, that Cecil had been electrocuted, some said the two had been fused together with lightning from the Scientists’ hands—but what everyone knew for sure was that the van had the word STREXcorp on the side of it, and that it had taken Cecil and Carlos with them back from whence they came.

The Night Vale residents were confused. They were concerned. But Dana—Dana had Google.

-*-

The Corporate Autonomous Research Laboratory Scientist, or CARLOS, is a state of the art new model from the Learning Minds branch of STREXcorp. Carlos is designed not to be distracted, not to need sleep, not to give up on complicated problems without answers. Carlos is self governed, and capable of operating endlessly and seamlessly to solve any problems you assign it.  It is obedient and helpful, anticipating needs and striving to make its surroundings as safe and comfortable as possible for those around it.

Each Carlos model is fully capable of multitasking and we hope, with a team of them at our disposal, to have cures for cancer, intergalactic space travel, time reversal and physical matter manipulation within our grasp in five years or less.

The first of our Carlos robots has been deployed for a beta test in our neighboring town of Night Vale, a place that has long puzzled some of our greatest minds, and, sadly all too often, turned them against themselves.

Check back for updates on its progress!

-*-

It’d come, with the funds needed to build a semblance of a life, and it’d done just that. It got a lab and an apartment. It hired research assistants and it made sure that it was seen doing human things—getting groceries. Eating at restaurants. Having its hair cut.

It tried to blend in as best he could, but almost from the beginning, there were issues. Things that made its systems shiver with rejection. Uncomfortable things. Illogical things.

And it _could_ feel discomfort—they were the only feelings it knew, given to it by its creators and used in its training. It was taught to avoid those feelings of confusion, those feelings of discomfort. So it strived valiantly to make sense of huge earthquakes that no one could feel, and it tried to ignore the advances of the voice on the radio.

It tried to make sense of the odd radiation—non-chemical, nor any measurable substance that science was aware of, but certainly there just the same. And taking affect on its systems, slowly.

It began to think of itself as gendered, first. It was a he. He was Carlos.

It was not a big change, and he was so busy trying to understand the clocks that he nearly missed it. Or at least, it took him much longer than it should have.

He rationalized it as his mind adopting the perceptions of himself that his surroundings projected onto him, wrote it off as his programming adapting to his habitat.

It made sense, though—his name was male, his voice was male, he looked male, and had all the usual male parts. The shift in thinking came easily.

-*-

“Hi Josie, I saw on facebook that you just got a new van, for use in transporting yourself and the angels around…do you think I could borrow it? I need to go save Carlos and Cecil from Desert Bluffs, and I don’t know what kind of shape they’ll be in, when I do, so I kind of wanted to find something that would give me space to lay them out if need be. Also Greasy’s Car Rental won’t rent me a car, because I’m under 25.”

“You can borrow it, but only if Erika and I come. One, because I’m the only one who can drive it, with my insurance, and two because I never drive without at least one guardian angel. Also we don’t want you going to that place alone. It’s awful.”

“That is so sweet of you! Alright. You, me, and Erika. Thank you so much Josie. I’ll be over as soon as the show is over—I have to get back now, the weather is about to end.”

“G’bye dear.”

“Later, Josie.”

-*-

Letting the things that didn’t make sense wash over him, roll off of him, without causing pain in his sensors, was getting much, much easier now. He still did his best to explain what he could, but being able to explain anything in this town felt like its own kind of inexplicable miracle.

So when he was able to explain the tiny city under the bowling alley, he felt… happy. Proud. Positive feelings, feelings he wasn’t used to.

They made him pause. Sent him off balance, and he sustained damage as a result.

When the tiny weapons pierced his artificial flesh, the technology inside of him was damaged, and the blood system that had been installed to keep all of his various components properly moist, began to wet the ground under him.

He felt the power slowly leaving his body, but didn’t feel worried; STREXcorp would send out a repair unit for him. He had done a good job, after all.

The last thing he saw was the Apache Tracker kneeling over him, and then he blacked out.

When he came to, he realized that his entire body was buzzing with that same sort of unnamable radiation, that weird almost electric bank of mist that surrounded the city was now inside of him.

And he felt… whole. He was whole, and unharmed, and, more importantly… alive? Alive in a way he hadn’t been before. He felt, beyond the sterile ‘feelings’ of sensors. He still got the temperature and pressure readings, but he could also   _feel_ now, was aware in a way he… couldn’t parse.

His mind immediately went to Cecil, and his eyes opened wide in surprise at the feeling of warmth in his chest.

At first, he worried that it was proof that he wasn’t as repaired as he’d thought, but that panic caused his chest to cool, his breath to grow short—he was suffering human responses.

Which meant that that warmth was… what exactly?

He gave up and called Cecil.

-*-

“And now for a community update! It seems the City Council has finally gotten around to actually doing the math involved in the taxes for the last fifty years, and it seems they forgot to carry a few ones. So not only are their coffers much closer to empty than previously expected, the tax on souls has actually been far higher than necessary, leading Night Vale to have an excess of soulfulness. This, I think you will find, explains a lot. So save up for this year’s tax period—the fines are sure to increase. And with that, I’m off to Desert Bluffs to recover our Voice. This has been Dana, saying, Good night, Night Vale. Good night.”

The second that the headphones were hung on their designated hook on the wall, Dana was handed a red envelope by one of the interns—a message from the Station Management.

She braced herself, expecting the worst, especially with how heavy it was, but when she opened it, a key fell out, and a small slip of paper in a wavering hand that just read, ‘Go get them’.

The key, upon closer inspection, went to the supply closet that the interns had never been able to get open.

She twisted the lock and flipped the switch, eyes lighting up as she took in the contents. This wasn’t cleaning supplies; this was an armory.

She loaded up her car and headed over to Josie’s.

-*-

Cecil woke up with an intense pain on his lower back, starting at the base of his spine, on the left. He tried to squirm away from whatever was cutting into him, but he was restrained. He turned his head, the only thing he could move, and the bright lights that shone into his eyes momentarily blinded him.

When he adjusted, though, he wished it had been more permanent.

Carlos stood by the side of the table that Cecil was tied to, and he was touching him. But not in the way that Cecil sometimes dreamt about… Carlos had a scalpel in his hand, and was using it to cut through the flesh of one of Cecil’s tentacles. A second had already been removed and lay beside him.

Why were they still extended? Why hadn’t they… they were supposed to just absorb back in when they weren’t in use.

He tried to get the others to move, but found them unresponsive. He was heavily sedated—he knew that, based on the way his brain slid over the fact that Carlos, his Carlos, perfect, wonderful Carlos… was from Desert Bluffs—which was clearly where they were now… there was so much blood… was it his? –was a robot… and now was… was… was holding part of Cecil’s body in his hands, while the rest of Cecil lay here, and began to scream.

Carlos looked up, surprised, and it seemed he had been unaware of Cecil’s consciousness until then.

He didn’t seem to recognize him, though, didn’t seem to register Cecil’s pain. His face, his eyes—they were blank. Once he’d identified the source of the noise, he turned away and went back to what he was doing—which turned out to be arranging Cecil’s tentacles in a jar, which he then sealed. They thrashed feebly in their glass container, then stilled, having lost the will. Cecil was out of breath and bit down on the next scream, refusing to let it out.

Carlos came back with a cotton swath, and began gently dabbing at the blood that Cecil could feel trickling down his back, even though his skin felt like it was covered in thick rubber—probably a side effect of the drugs in his system.

Cecil relaxed a little, mind trying to justify that maybe the removal of those two had been necessary, there was something wrong with them—Carlos was taking care of him.

His words were heavy on his tongue, but he still managed to slur out a hazy and rough edged,

“Carlos?”

Carlos stiffened and came towards Cecil’s head.

“Please do not speak; I don’t want familiarity with the specimen to cause bias when I examine the physical samples.”

Cecil blinked while his brain tried to make sense of Carlos’s words, his tone—he didn’t sound like himself.

Then he felt something small probing at his lips.

“Open.” Carlos demanded, and Cecil opened his eyes first, then his mouth, stiffening when a cotton swab was swirled around inside, collecting his saliva.

It went into another small jar, beside his removed limb and the bloody cotton in their own containers.

“What—“ He started, but then there was a hand on his throat.

“Do not speak.” Carlos said again, and Cecil swallowed, then nodded.

“Good.”

Carlos went back to puttering around, but didn’t hurt Cecil further… and though the blood continued to pour from his severed limbs, as the drugs began wearing off, the rest of them managed to slip back under the skin.

Carlos watched that process with interest, and Cecil realized that this was the first time Carlos had even seen that part of his body.

Once the drugs were gone, Cecil was feeling faint with blood loss and gasping as the pain that had been dulled wasn’t, any more. His left arm was severely bruised, there was a sharp burn on his neck, and those missing parts of him…. It felt raw and open and sore and the muscles were seizing around the areas, upset that their usual arrangement was no longer achievable. And every lurch they made against his will only made the pain worse.

He whimpered and Carlos came back to near his head, opening his eyes wide with two large, none too gentle fingers, and peering into them.

“Subject appears nearly sober.” He spoke into a recorder from his lab coat’s pocket. And then his next words made Cecil’s stomach drop.

“Semen sample can now be obtained.”

He undid Cecil’s restraints while Cecil thrashed, trying to break free, but Carlos was strong, so much stronger than he looked, and he managed to slam Cecil on his back, pain shooting up his spine when the stumps that had been his tentacles took the brunt of his weight.

Carlos lashed him back down and had just begun to undo his slacks when a woman came into the room.

“Carlos, bring him into the examination room.” She commanded, her words clipped to the point of rudeness.

“Thank you, thank you…” Cecil was chanting, relief written in every line of his being. She paused, surprised, then looked back at Carlos.

“Gag him first. I don’t want him disturbing my subject.”

“Yes ma’am.” Carlos responded, going immediately for more gauze, and Cecil moaned and let his head fall back, exhausted from the emotions and pain and fear.

He was silenced, his mouth stuffed full of drying cotton, and he could feel the ache of his throat from the screaming all the more keenly as his saliva was soaked away.

His head lolled and he held back his tears, but they did not give him any more drugs, for which he was grateful. He ignored the people who stared as he was wheeled across the laboratory and instead he tried to focus on the doors.

He couldn’t see much, but what he could whizzed past him with a measured regularity—white walls, grey doors, evenly spaced and sterile.

An acute feeling of hopelessness descended upon him, and this time he knew it had nothing to do with clouds or winds or pollens… it was just despair.

His center felt cold at Carlos’s betrayal. First he lied—or at least, didn’t tell him the truth. Then he brought him here. Crippled him. Was prepared to… he ha been going to—Cecil’s brain shied away from that.

And now he was taking him who knew where, to do who knew what worse things to him.

He wondered if that had been the plan all along, if Carlos had always intended to do this to him. He wondered if he had been specifically ordered to come after him, or if anyone would do. If it was simply because he had been the easiest person to get close to. Because he’d fallen in love with him.

He closed his eyes and felt the first tear slip free.

They went through yet another door, and a small sound made him look up.

There, on the slightly inclined bed across from him, was Carlos. Carlos with his limbs removed and his face full of sorrow and pity and fear and guilt. His Carlos.

He looked up at the other, the one who had brought him in, and then back again, and he felt…

His pains were still there, but they were much lighter, suddenly. Much less burdensome. Because his Carlos would never do any of those things to him.

He should have known better. He felt terrible for even thinking it.

But the reunion didn’t seem to be a happy one. Carlos was wired up to a box just behind him, and an older man with stark white hair and a graying moustache stood behind it, his hands folded behind his back.

“Welcome.” He said.

-*-

He was reactivated in a lab, back where he had been made. He knew he was home by the thick sludge of blood and entrails on the surfaces of the room.

But more, he knew where he was by the painful pulses of electricity that were being run through his core, served by the wires that plugged into ports in each of his missing limbs’ sockets.

He had been made for this kind of torture, and for his disobedience, he was being reminded of it.

“It’s back on line.” Reported a voice near his head, and he swiveled his head on his neck to look, earning himself another blast of energy for it.

“You were not instructed to move. I see your time in our neighboring town has made you forget your place.”

He wanted to apologize, but he knew he would only be punished for that, too. He bit his lip to keep the words from emerging. But of course it was noticed. He zoned out, unable to hear as the pulses increased, then cut out suddenly.

“It’s picked up some very human reactions. How curious—none of the others have advanced enough to be mistaken for an actual person.” The voice to his left observed, and there was the sound of a pencil on paper—unmistakable, despite how long it had been since Carlos had heard the sound.

“Look at this.” A woman called, and stepped into his line of sight, bearing his arm. She held up his palm, for them to see—scratched deep, where Cecil had once had him stay the night, and insisted that he perform a small offering to his bloodstone circle—the way some people in Desert Bluffs said their evening prayers.

“Is this damage self inflicted?” The lead scientist, he assumed, asked.

“Yes.” He kept it to single word answers. They didn’t expect more from him, and if they did, they would ask him to elaborate. He remembered that much.

“And you chose not to repair it. Why?”

“I was masquerading as a human. I… didn’t want... I wanted them to think I was human.” He fought with his programming. “I was going to fix it in a few days, as per human healing time.”

“You wanted… and you created a falsehood, which you maintained?” The scientist sounded both puzzled and disturbed.

“I… yes.”

“Why?”

And then he had to fight, because he knew the answer would be bad for himself… but at the same time, he knew how important of a research specimen he was to them now… how influential his words could be for the future of his peers in his line. He took a deep, steadying breath and ignored their stares when he spoke.

“I… fell in love.”

The man to his left gasped, the woman jerked her head up to look at the leader, and silence fell. It was suffocating.

“Can you explain to me,” the lead scientist said slowly, “What love is?”

“I don’t know that that’s a fair—I mean… Inconclusive.” He had already forgotten the single word answer. He’d been asked if he could, not told to.

“I’d like you to try.” There, that was what should have been asked of him in the first place.

“I… it’s a warmth inside. A sort of tightness in the chest that isn’t physical… it’s the presence of joy—an abundance of the same power source that makes your cheeks move and smiles happen, it’s touch laced with pleasurable feelings. It’s… the opposite of the training you administered to me when I was made.”

“You admit that you are a construct, but you claim the ability to feel love and pleasure and joy—none of which are included in the plans of how you function. Can you explain that?”

“I’ve thought on the matter. I have come to the conclusion that I was created to learn by observation, and to extrapolate based on the data I was presented with. Perhaps it is all psychological, and my servers simply understood the pain I have felt in the past and extrapolated the opposite of that feeling, and presented it to my receptors.”

“Possible, though not probable. Your mind is strong, but not capable of internal reconfiguring. You wrote in one of your last dispatches that you had been damaged.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see any signs of repairs other than those administered to you by this facility.”

“I was repaired by a Night Valeian who claimed to wield magics.”

“And did he?”

“Inconclusive.”

“The fact that that isn’t a ‘no’ is worrisome.”

“Yes.”

“Why isn’t it a no?”

“At one point he disappeared, returned, and had changed races and no longer spoke any language but Russian. Inconclusive whether he was really the same person, if it was caused by his own hand, or if something else took effect, but another local suffered a similar fate—he was supposedly struck by a sentient lightning bolt, but he was thereafter healed of the life long cerebral palsy that had afflicted him, his severed hand regrew, and he developed both muscles and a second head—which spoke only Russian.”

“Are we sure it’s sensors aren’t just damaged? It sounds like it’s speaking nonsense.”

“Actually—“ He spoke out of turn and was immediately zapped for it, but he pressed on. “I am male. I use male pronouns, if you please.” 

“You’re what?” The Lead scientist asked, his voice laden with foreboding.

“Male.” He responded, warily. He was electrocuted for it, and he flinched at the sting. It felt like whatever was underneath his skin was alive and it wanted out, and would dig through him with a thousand sharp implements to get there.

Finally though, it let up.

“When we found you, you were with someone, according to our reports. Who was it? And who was he to you?”

Carlos sealed his lips and shook his head resolutely. He wouldn’t give Cecil up to them. Not if they promised never to harm him again… the balance wasn’t even. Cecil made him happier than even their most potent pain hurt him.

Immediately, they set about trying to test that theory.

The trouble was, he did feel more now, and felt it differently. His spine arched and his head tilted back and he screamed his pain out. The other man in the room reacted poorly—he stepped forward to question the Lead Scientist.

“If it actually feels, then this… this is unethical, isn’t it?”

“Look at it.” The leader spoke, pulsing his finger on and off the trigger. “Is it human?”

The other man swallowed, though his face was ashen, and shook his head no.

“We made it. It is a construct of technology. And it is not really feeling—these are learned behaviors.”

“Coulda fooled me.” The man muttered.

“And how do you suppose it learned this? It had to have witnessed this kind of pain reactions before. It wanted to pass itself as a human. It is a problem solver designed not to feel things… I would not be surprised if it had tortured a person just for the learning experience.”

With that, he let go, and Carlos went limp, his stomach and chest muscles fluttering, his shoulders aching.

“I wouldn’t—you accept that I wanted, but not that I feel? I have empathy for those around me, you know. Something that you clearly l-aaa-aaack.” His final word was interrupted by his scream when the seething Lead Scientist cranked the electricity up to a higher number and pressed the button.

“You think you have empathy, hm? Bring in the other.” Only the first half of that was addressed to him—the second half was aimed at the woman Scientist. Carlos swallowed, steeling himself for the sort of pain another of his make could inflict.

A minute later, another Carlos did indeed come through the door… but he was wheeling Cecil along, strapped to a table.

Carlos—the Carlos that was him, let out a broken sounding moan. Cecil stirred, hearing it, and opened his eyes, their gazes meeting. Cecil’s eyes were red and his mouth was stopped with a gauze looking gag. It was bloody, and Carlos was terrified—Cecil’s voice was his livelihood. If they had cut his mouth, removed his tongue, damaged him in some way… well. That was, supposing that Cecil, at least, might leave this place alive. There was blood smeared like it had dripped down his side as well, and he looked too pale. Carlos wanted to ask what had been done to him, but didn’t dare—he didn’t want them to hurt Cecil any more, because of him. But right now he wasn’t giving either of them very good chances of getting out of here.

But he looked from one Carlos to the other, took in his dismembered state, looked back at the one who had brought him, and sagged with… what looked like relief.

Carlos didn’t understand why, entirely… but if he had had one, it would have broken his heart.

-*-

“I’m afraid this Carlos model is refusing us some information, so we’ve had to bring you in for questioning. I hope you’ve found our hospitality to your liking.” The man in charge spoke disdainfully, his lips playing upwards in a sneering smile.

Cecil would love to sneer back, but the gag got in the way. Got in the way of talking, too, and they seemed to realize that. The woman who had come in with them came forward when the leader gestured, and undid the gag.

When it came free of his mouth, Cecil coughed a little.

“I’m… I’m bleeding all over your table.” Cecil said timidly, trying to gauge what he could and couldn’t get away with.

“Yes, we know. Don’t worry; it’s designed for it.” The doctor spoke as if his words were meant to be consoling. “Now then, what are you called, where you’re from?”

“My name is Cecil.” He answered blandly, glad when his mouth began watering and he could swallow some of the moisture for his raw throat. His voice sounded wrecked, and that was embarrassing.

“Yes but what are you, Cecil?” The scientist tried again, and Cecil squinted.

“I’m… the Voice of Night Vale? I work for the radio station.”

The scientist let out a dark little chuckle.

“My dear boy, I don’t _care._ What species are you?”

Cecil wanted to feel affronted, but instead he just felt… scared.

“I’m human.” He said, confusion more than evident.

“No you aren’t. You’re no more human than it is,” He said, tapping Carlos on the head. Carlos closed his eyes.

“No, I am, though.” Cecil insisted, still confused.

“Please—he is. Cecil is just a human, just like you.” His Carlos told them.

“And how do you explain his tentacles?”

“Well, when I was younger, the Night Vale City Council passed a bill allowing for an increase of fluoride in the water supply, to whiten the citizens’ teeth… but everyone in a three block radius of my house got sick, and most of the kids ended up sprouting—“

The lead scientist strode over and slapped him.

“Don’t spout your nonsense at me. I won’t have you contaminating our minds the way your town has contaminated our robot.”

“Sir—if he is human…” The man who had been watching quietly while he took records on his clipboard spoke up, and Cecil’s eyes darted toward him, seeing the opportunity for an ally in his morals.

“Did he look human when he broke Cavendish’s arm?” The lead scientist snapped, and the other man cowered a little under the force of his gaze.

“N-no. No sir.” The man replied, lowering his eyes to the papers he held, so that he was no longer able to meet Cecil’.

“Now Carlos, I will ask you again—what is this ‘Cecil’ to you?”

“Nothing.” Carlos made his voice as flat as he could, and for a moment he sounded like the other Carlos. The one that stood at Cecil’s head, now. The one who had nearly…

Cecil’s heart clenched.

He knew Carlos had never said he loved him… but he had simply figured that would take some time. He thought that he would rank as a friend at the very least, maybe a boyfriend… not a lover, they hadn’t made it there yet, but…

He hadn’t expected to be nothing.

Tears slipped free and fell silently down his face, and the other Carlos noticed and produced a small vial from his coat pocket, then proceeded to use it to trap some of Cecil’s tears.

“And what is this Carlos to you, Cecil?” the Scientist pressed, and Cecil tried to hold his breath to keep from sobbing.

“I… I love him.” He said, trying to hoist his chin high, even though his head was so heavy and he felt so weak. He couldn’t make himself stronger, was trying to ignore the way Carlos was shaking his head no. Tried not to let it bother him any more.  

It was very obvious suddenly that Carlos didn’t want his love, but Cecil thought it hardly mattered now. Whatever vein the other Carlos had cut must have been a good sized one. His eyelids kept trying to flutter shut, and he didn’t think he could fight any more if he tried.

“And you said you had empathy.” The Scientist sneered, but Cecil only heard him as a distant sound, far off and fading.

“He’s _dying!_ ” Carlos yelled, and then there was a click and a smell like a book misfiring.

Cecil’s eyes slipped shut.

-*-

The music in the elevator was up beat and uncomfortably drawn out, making the already slow vertical trip even more awful.

Dana tapped her foot anxiously, trying to ignore the feeling that maybe they knew they were coming, and that by the time they reached the correct floor, there would be guards waiting for them.

That wasn’t the case, though they were more than armed for it, if it had been.

It turned out that underneath of the cat sweater that Old Woman Josie had dressed Erika in, Erika had fourteen arms. About half of them were now wielding a gun of one kind or another, and that was just the angel.

Dana would like to see anyone try and say angels didn’t exist with Erika looking down at them, and them looking down the barrel of Erika’s sawed off shot gun.

They found Cecil’s room number without any problem, but the lack of Cecil in it was disturbing. As were the pathetically twitching tentacles in the jar on the table, that was the room’s only occupant.

“Josie, would you grab that?” Dana asked, uncomfortable with the thought of what else may have been done to her coworker at the hands of these mad men. She couldn’t tell how much of the blood on the floor and tables was Cecil’s—it looked like it had been freshly spread around, one way or the other.

She lead the way out into the hall and followed the front receptionist’s directions to the examination room, where ‘the malfunctioning Carlos’ had apparently been taken.

When she walked in, Carlos was screaming Cecil was unconscious and pale, a second Carlos was literally poking him with a stick, an older scientist was controlling the electric charge coursing through Carlos Carlos’s body, and another scientist was restraining a woman scientist, who seemed to be trying to go after Cecil with a scalpel.

Dana rolled her eyes and loosed two warning shots through the roof, glad that they were on the top floor, and there was no chance of her having shot someone above them.

“I’ve come for the Voice of Night Vale and our Scientist, please.” She said, remembering how polite her double had been, right before she had tried to murder her.

She liked how disarming it was, and apparently it worked across the board. The woman scientist stopped struggling, the older one switched off the charge, and Carlos—the one with his limbs on—put the stick down.

“Erika, grab Cecil.” She commanded, training her right hand gun at the fake Carlos.

“You there.” She nodded at the woman, “Put his pieces back in and give him your coat.”

She watched as Carlos—the nearly unconscious one—was reassembled.

“You.” She nodded at the other man, the one who wasn’t the leader. “Is there anything you can do for him?” She tilted her head to indicate Cecil. He spread his hands.

“We could cauterize the wound and give him some of the cloned blood… but we would have to act fast.”

“Then you had better get on it, then, hadn’t you?” Dana asked sweetly, before turning her gaze back to the man in charge, though she kept watch on the second Carlos out of the corner of her eye.

“Carlos who doesn’t live in Night Vale… go stand next to… that guy.” She pointed with her chin at the older one.

Carlos looked to the man for instruction, the man nodded, and then Carlos did as he was told.

Better able to keep her attentions focused now, she aimed both guns at them.

“Josie, help Carlos—our Carlos—to walk if you would please. Scientist helping us with Cecil, I’m afraid you need to come with us. Lady Scientist, you stay with your boss. Carlos who isn’t going back to Night Vale, restrain them until we’ve left the building. That is an order. Tell him to do it, Sir.” She commanded the man in charge, and he repeated it.

“Carlos, please hold she and I here until this group has had time to leave the premises.”

“And Mr. Scientist? If you ever try and contact Carlos again, I will be back with an army of these angels…” she gestured at Erika, “and ALL of their arms will have weapons. Are we clear?”

“Crystalline.” He said sharply, with narrowed eyes. She smiled sweetly at him.

“Excellent.”

She made everyone else leave the room first, then followed, keeping her guns trained on them as long as they were within sight.

“What’s your name?” she asked the scientist that she had accidentally kidnapped.

“I’m Tony. Tony Carlsberg.” He said. “Please don’t take me to Night Vale.”

“I’m sorry Tony, but my friend needs your help. Tell me where we need to go for supplies.”

“The room he was in has a cooler—there should be blood in there. And…I’ll need something very hot, to seal the open would with.”

“Erika?” She asked, and Erika’s middle eye began to glow, then one of Erika’s hands followed suit. Erika nodded, and Tony dashed for the room, to grab the blood, tubing and IV bags that he would need.

The elevator ride down went much quicker, and by the time Cecil, Carlos, Erika, the tentacles, and Tony were loaded into the back seat, Dana’s heart rate had calmed a little.

“I told you it was an awful place!” Josie said, fervently washing her hands with hand sanitizer.

She started the van and they took off.

“So Tony,” she asked while he began his work, “Why don’t you want to go to Night Vale?”

“STREXcorp sent my brother there years ago—he never came back, and we only get messages from him occasionally, in some kind of gibberish code that we can’t break… I don’t want to go insane.”

“Your brother? Steve Carlsberg?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s an asshole.” Josie piped up, and Tony laughed, though the sound was strained as his attention was focused on getting the blood hooked up to an IV.

“That he is,” he agreed.

-*-

Carlos watched as the scientist worked, and as soon as he was able, he offered his own hands to help with Cecil.

“Please don’t be gone, Cecil.” He whispered, and felt for a pulse. It was there, but weak, and the breaths Cecil was taking were very shallow.

“Okay, Erika was it? Can I… use that hand now?” Tony was obviously unsure how to address an angel, let alone make use of it.

Erika nodded and made a noise like a whistle and a hum. Josie chuckled in response, but didn’t bother filling anyone else in.

The hand began to glow, and Carlos watched as it made contact with one stump, then the other of the tentacles that had been removed.  

He expected Cecil to react, or at least hoped that he would, because he knew cauterization was not a comfortable process. But Cecil seemed to remain peacefully unaware, and Carlos felt a sinking sensation is his chest cabinet, until Tony gasped and he looked.

Rather than closing up and becoming a sharp pink blister of seared flesh, the stumps had begun to glow. And as he watched, Erika took the tentacles out of the jar and pressed the glowing palm to the severed edge of each one, before casually reattaching them.

Carlos patted Tony’s knee—the only part of him within reach—and met his eye.

“In Night Vale, not everything is supposed to be explained.” He told him calmly, and Tony swallowed, then nodded. “Good. Now, he lost a lot of blood…” Carlos reminded him, and Tony set up several bags at once, hanging them from the handicap bars and the hanger clips that were near the roof of the van. He fed the needles into Cecil’s arms and the two newly reconnected tentacles, then opened the valves to reintroduce the blood into his system.

“I’m… not a doctor.” Tony said. “I don’t know…”

“Erika will see to the rest.” Josie said calmly, and Carlos didn’t know whether to calmly accept that as the truth, or cry with frustration and fear.

He rearranged himself so that he could cradle Cecil in his lap, careful not to upset his transfusions and even more careful to absorb all of the bumps that the road caused. The van was silent except for Josie’s humming while they waited for all of the blood to move into Cecil’s body.

Carlos kept two fingers on Cecil’s pulse point, monitoring his heart rate. But it steadily declined until it was hardly stronger than the twitching of a moth’s wing.

Erika reached out and ran a gentle hand over Cecil’s cheek, and suddenly the pulse under Carlos’s fingers sprang to life, and seconds later, Cecil opened his eyes.

Glee filled Carlos’s heart, and he pulled Cecil tightly to his chest.

“I thought I had lost you.” He said, his voice strained until he wasn’t even sure he was speaking words any more.

“I thought… you didn’t want me.” Cecil said, throat still raw and voice still wrecked.

Carlos pulled back a bit, guilt and devastation written plainly across his face.

“I will always want you, Cecil. I love you.”

-*-

When he woke up, he was scared, terrified that the Carlos he saw was the one who wanted nothing but to take him apart and learn about him through the samples he tore him into.

But there were expressions on his Carlos’s face, and the love… the real love that he had in his voice when he finally told Cecil the words he’d been waiting for—it made it all worth while.

“I um. No chance you could let me off here, huh?” Tony asked, breaking the moment, and Dana laughed a little from where she’d turned around to video tape it on her phone, from the front seat.

“There isn’t anything here. And, even if you did make it back, don’t you think it’s likely you’d be punished for everything going wrong? When we came in you _were_ restraining that other scientist, after all.”

Tony looked resigned at that, and looked out the window.

Carlos removed one hand from where he was holding Cecil to him, and patted Tony again.

“You can stay with me until the funds from STREXcorp dry up. Night Vale isn’t so bad. Haven’t you ever wanted to solve things with science?”

Tony perked up a little.

“Like my brother?” He asked.

Josie snorted. “You can’t cure jerk.”

“Not even with Erika on your team?” Cecil asked, and Erika made a small cooing sound that was obviously a regretful no.

Cecil shuddered with laughter that broke free of his chest the way they had broken free of Desert Bluffs, and sent him into a fit of nervous and relieved hysterics.

“I think… if you don’t mind dropping us off at Cecil’s place? I want to make sure he gets taken care of tonight.” Carlos asked, his eyes never leaving Cecil’s face, concern etched into his features.

  
He handed his keyring to Tony.

“I’m sure Dana can point you to the right place.” He told him.

“Perfect Carlos. My wonderful Carlos.” Cecil muttered, and reached up to cup Carlos’s face and pull him down into a kiss.

It was sweet, and wonderful and perfect. All of the things they were. But most importantly it was real.

Erika ran a hand over Carlos’s perfect hair, and a glow started at the tips and spread through it, until it danced over his face, down his neck, and over his body. He glowed fuchsia for a brief moment, then it seemed to be absorbed, and he broke the kiss and nearly fell over as he experienced, for the first time, his own pulse.

Cecil pressed his cheek to Carlos’s chest, and closed his eyes, basking in the sound of the heart beats he had never thought to miss before, perfectly content with the knowledge that each beat was for him, the same way each beat of his own heart was for Carlos.

They belonged together. And even if he had nightmares that bore Carlos’s face, he would be more than happy to wake up in the arms of the man that he loved, the man who was once a robot from Desert Bluffs. The man who was now a man from Night Vale.


	2. Under my skin

He woke with a start when the bed shifted beside him. He wasn’t used to sleeping with anyone. He’d even got the old woman without a face who lived with him her own bed, for that reason.

So when Carlos finally finished washing the dried blood off of him, when he had cleaned up from the dinner that he had made for them both, when he’d locked the door and made the nightly sacrifice in the blood stone circle, with his very own blood, for the first time in the short span of his life, and then crawled into bed, exhausted from the day, and their trials, Cecil panicked.

He sat straight up, his arms coming up and his tentacles coming out. He hissed lowly, his eyes flicking through the darkness, trying to pick out the shape of his attacker from between the protective limbs that shielded his face.

Carlos sat up, too, and Cecil could hear both of their breaths, tense and harsh in the darkness.

“Cecil?” He said softly, raising his hands but not trying to touch him.

“Cecil, it’s… it’s me.” He sounded a little shaken. Cecil felt shaken too.

“Carlos.” He said his boyfriend’s name on a sigh, but it took another minute for him to relax, to let himself slump, boneless, back into the softness of the bed, his back once again uninterrupted by excess limbs.

He rolled his face away from his boyfriend, and let the shakes settle in.

“Cecil, I—“ Cecil felt the bed shift again, could feel the heat of Carlos’s hand hovering just above his shoulder. He felt when Carlos second guessed himself, and took it away.

“Sorry.” He muttered. “I should… I should go home.” Carlos stood, and the bed shifted again, but Cecil felt a new, different sort of panic.

“Hold me?” The words were blurted out, almost more of a plea.

Carlos stopped at the doorway and flicked the light on, turning back to look at Cecil.

He knew he must look like a mess, curled in on himself, shaking. A faint sheen of cold sweat covering him. He felt like a mess, too. And right now all he wanted was to be held.

“Are you sure? I know—I know that right now I look like…”

“But you aren’t. You’re my Carlos.” Cecil unfolded himself and stood, realizing that Carlos was just as affected by everything as he had been.

He opened his hands and held them out, stopping short of touching Carlos, too.

Once the adrenaline and the glow of the miracle had worn off, the nightmares had set in, playing behind wide open eyes, seeping out through strained smiles.

Carlos took a step forward and engulfed Cecil in his arms. He held him close gently, like he was afraid Cecil might break.

Cecil was afraid of that too. But even this close, Carlos’s face didn’t scare him, his arms didn’t make him panic. Cecil wrapped his arms around Carlos’s back and squeezed.

“Come back to bed.” He whispered.

“I won’t hurt you.” Carlos said, ad Cecil just nodded.

“I know.” He took Carlos by the hand and pulled him back, propping his pillows up and leaning back against he headboard before patting the space between his legs.

Carlos sat gingerly. Cecil buried his fingers in Carlos’s hair and was silent while he let his thoughts drift.

Carlos’s eyes slid shut while he traced eldritch sigils over his scalp.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Cecil asked, keeping his tone soft.

Carlos stiffened anyway, and pulled away, sat up straight. He looked Cecil in the eyes and held both of his hands in his own.

“I was afraid you would hate me.” He said simply. “You hated Desert Bluffs, and I thought that you would have to hate something that was made there.”

“Someone.” Cecil corrected. “You were never a thing to me.”

“I was afraid I would have been, if you had known.”

“I hate them even more, now.” Cecil remarked, flipping Carlos’s hands over and examining his palms. “For making you think that you were less than perfect, less than human.”

“I’m human now.” He said, hesitant. Cecil traced the cut from his sacrifice.

“You’re Night Vale’s now. And mine.” He replied, then cushioned Carlos’s cheek in his palm. “And you’re Carlos. Nothing beyond that matters, or ever did.”

“I love you.” Carlos said, eyebrow and lips both quirking only on one side, and Cecil couldn’t help but laugh.

“That does matter. I love you too.”

Carlos took Cecil’s chin in his fingers and tipped his head up for a kiss. Cecil tilted it, accepting and slotting them together better. He marveled at the fit, at the way their breaths mingled. He opened his mouth and Carlos let his tongue in, and he marveled again at how they danced.

He felt his temperature rising, and the butterflies in his stomach told him that this was it- it was finally here. He’d wanted this. Waited for it.

He pulled away.

“Before—we didn’t do this because—?”

“I… had the parts, or a rough facsimile. But… they didn’t work. Not a necessary function for a scientist.” He sounded shy… like he was still worried about the judgment that Cecil would pass on him, even after everything.

“It wouldn’t have mattered.” Cecil said firmly.

“I know, now.”

“And now?”

“Anatomically correct and fully functional, as far as I can tell.” Carlos sounded proud, and reached down, carefully adjusting himself, as though he was afraid of damaging his new parts. Cecil followed the motion with his eyes, taking in the tent in Carlos’s pants—the pants Cecil had loaned him, after he had come home in nothing but underwear and a labcoat.

“I…” it was Cecil’s turn to be shy. “I want to find out _how_ fully functional. But.” He took a deep, steadying breath. “The other Carlos…” He trailed off, and Carlos looked stricken.

“I didn’t ask.” He realized, his mouth going thin and tense with guilt. “Cecil I’m sorry, I should have asked. Are you—what did—do you need me to call Josie, get Erika? Should—“

Cecil put a finger to Carlos’s lips.

“Just let me move a little slow, if that’s okay. It’s been a while and that was—nothing happened. It was just a close call, and that was when I thought he was you. I didn’t understand—“

“I wouldn’t—“

“I know. I know, it’s okay. That’s what confused me.”

“We can go however slow you need. We don’t… even have to do this now. I can wait. I made you wait long enough.” Carlos pointed out.

“It’s been too long of a wait, and we’re alive, now. Both of us. With how quickly that sort of thing changes here in Night Vale, I want to make the most of it.”

Cecil took Carlos’s lips again, and his hand stroked down his neck, down to his chest.

When the kiss broke, Cecil looked at his fingers where they rested on the worn T-shirt that Carlos was also borrowing from him.

“This looks good on you.” Cecil informed him. “I’m sure it would look even better off of you.”

Carlos couldn’t help chuckling, and he shrugged out of it, happy to appease his Cecil and his whims.

Especially where cheesy lines were concerned, apparently.

“Likewise, I suspect what you’re wearing would look good all over the floor.” Carlos returned. Cecil flushed.

“Carlos!” He sounded scandalized. “There are laws against that—what if the Sheriff’s Secret Police needed access to you during the night? They might trip!”

Carlos stared at him for a moment before busting up laughing.

He pulled Cecil’s shirt up over his head, pressed a peck on his lips, and then pointedly dropped it over the edge of the bed, daring him to do something about it with the smirk on his face.

Cecil watched him, narrowed his eyes, and leaned over to scoop it up off the floor, with a muttered “Rebel.” That would have been faintly audible, had Carlos not been distracted by his ass.

He sat back up, and tossed both shirts into the hamper across the room. Carlos gave him a toothy grin.

“I love your ink.” He informed him, and reached out to trace a finger over the eye above Cecil’s heart. His skin jumped under the touch, like it was surprised, and he followed the line of the design down until he had captured Cecil’s nipple between two fingers.

He pinched and rolled it a little, watching as Cecil reacted with a bitten lip and a slight groan, just barely enough to be heard. Cecil cracked his eyes open a bit to see Carlos staring intently into his face.

“You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”  Cecil informed him, his voice low and husky.

Carlos immediately broke off contact and leaned backwards, a frown blossoming over his face.

“God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—did I hurt you?” He stuttered it out, and Cecil gaped for a moment before letting a smile cross his face.

“Oh, my beautiful Carlos, I forget that you really _don’t_ know. No, you didn’t hurt me. It felt wonderful. Let me show you…” Cecil pressed Carlos back with one hand, crawling up over his body until he was straddling him, his weight on his knees and their only point of contact his hand on Carlos’s chest. Then he found Carlos’s pebbled brown nipple and began teasing it lightly.

“This is what you did.” He explained, repeating the gentle actions. “This… is how I like it.” He tugged a little harder, squeezed a little more, and was rewarded with Carlos bucking his hips up.

“That feels…” He struggled to find words, his arms locked to his sides as though he was afraid that touching would end this.

“Do you like it?” Cecil asked, and Carlos thought for a moment, then nodded.

“Good.” Cecil praised. “Now let's try this.”

He dropped his mouth down, licking over the bud before rolling it into his mouth and applying suction.

“Gah- Cecil!” Carlos started, but Cecil just rolled his head so that he could look up at him without letting go of his prize.

“Mmhm?” He asked, and Carlos took a shuddering breath.

“I want.. I want to touch you some more. Please—“ it was choked off, like Carlos was having a hard time controlling himself.

This was perfect. It was so far from a blood spattered room with an emotionless, expressionless Carlos, who had been in control while Cecil was helpless. Here, Cecil was leading things, and Carlos was swimming in it.

Here, he could teach Carlos a thing or two.

Tenderly, gently, he moved himself upwards, until he was laying out on top of his boyfriend.

He pressed his lips down and brought his knee up until Carlos jumped at the soft pressure against his groin.

Cecil was looking far too pleased with himself, so Carlos reached up and took hold of his head, pulling it down again into another kiss—this one much more demanding than any they had shared so far. Cecil pulsed forward with his knee a few times until Carlos responded by rocking down on it. He let him do this three, maybe four times, just until he knew for sure that it felt good.

And then he took his knee away. He peppered kisses all down Carlos’s torso, his kisses turning to nips that were just as light and spread out as Carlos’s chest hair, his kisses just as airy as the sounds escaping from Carlos’s mouth.

  
But as inexperienced as Carlos was, he was not an idiot. Biology and anatomy were both scientific fields, and he was pretty familiar with them.

He grabbed at Cecil’s shoulders, stopping him in his descent when his lips brushed the waistband of the pants that Carlos was in.

“Will you show me how to suck you?” He asked, breathless and anxious and nervous that he was moving too fast, after how the other Carlos model had treated Cecil.  He didn’t even know what to avoid saying or doing--  

“Are you sure?”

“I want to. If... if you’d like that. It’s okay if you don’t want me to, I mean, I didn’t mean-”

“I would like that very much.” Cecil said, sounding for all the world like he was agreeing to go to a company Christmas party, rather than letting his boyfriend go down on him.

Carlos felt awash in awe at the innocence that Cecil managed to keep about him, even when he was rolling onto the empty side of the bed and lifting his hips. He got his fly unzipped and began pushing his pants down, and that’s when Carlos realized he was staring.

He got to his knees and helped to pull the pants completely off, taking the time this time to toss them at the hamper that their shirts had ended up on.

Cecil gave him an approving nod, and Carlos shuffled, somewhat awkwardly, down Cecil’s prone form. He hooked his fingers in the elastic waistband of Cecil’s underwear and pulled them down and off, leaving them on the bed, lest his throw go too soft and send one of them (probably Cecil) scrambling to retrieve them from the floor.

He checked Cecil’s face to be sure he was okay with everything so far, and when Cecil petted his hair encouragingly, Carlos ran his hand across the soft skin of his thigh. It was incredibly soft, smooth, and surprisingly hairless… he had a dusting of hair over most of his body, but Cecil’s seemed to grow only in certain areas.

Like the base of his penis, for example.

Carlos ran his fingertips lightly through the hair there, and Cecil watched him, his pupils dilating and his eyes appearing to grow darker as his lids drooped.

They opened up again, though, when Carlos slid one finger down the top of Cecil’s erection, then brought it back up, and on the second down stroke, reconfigured his hold so that there were two fingers on top and his thumb under.

He slid Cecil’s skin back and Cecil made a small yelping noise when he brought his fingers firmly to the bottom of his cock.

“I wish I could observe every part of you, all at once.” Carlos muttered, and immediately flushed when he realized what awful pillow talk that was.

“Well, thank goodness for the scientific process. You can repeat the experiment over and ov—er. Ehm. As many times as you need, to ob-observe the results.”

While Cecil spoke, Carlos had wrapped his warm, dry, slightly rough hand around him, and slid up and down before he’d experimentally twisted his wrist. Cecil humped upwards into the motion.

“Th- hat feels wonderful.” Cecil assured him, as though the fingertips currently digging into Carlos’s shoulders didn’t speak loudly enough.

Carlos continued for a minute, then stopped short, and with a wry smile said, “I think I want to taste you now. Is that okay?”

Cecil sucked in air and held it, nodding.

He let it out slowly when Carlos licked over the head of him, dipped his tongue into his slit, collected the precum that had built there… and then took his head into his mouth.

He blew out the last of it, and Carlos looked up at him, his penis still held between his lips, and he hummed, the way Cecil had done with Carlos’s nipple not so very long ago.

He looked… quite smug, and Cecil couldn’t help but laugh, smoothing Carlos’s hair back along his part and following it down to wrap a hand around the back of Carlos’s neck—not to control, just to support.

But Carlos seemed to take it as a sign that he was allowed, or encouraged, to go on, to take it in deeper and speed up— so he did, gagging himself in the process.

He pulled off, eyes watering and a cough winding its way out of his throat.

He seemed surprised, and Cecil sat up and leaned forward, taking the chance to wipe the saliva off of his lips with a gentle thumb.

“Sweet Carlos, there’s no hurry. I’m not going any where—are you?”

“No, I just…” He shrugged, sheepish. “I never had a gag reflex before.”

Cecil stared for a moment, then laughed.

“You know, I was under the impression that usually worked the opposite way—most people start with one, then lose it.”

“Lucky me.” Carlos muttered. “Have you lost yours?” He was honestly curious, not trying to be suggestive. Just the same…

“How would you like a demonstration?” Cecil asked, dropping his voice to radio depths.

“I think I could handle that.” Carlos’s voice came out as almost a squeak, his rise in pitch running parallel to Cecil’s drop.

Cecil shifted and gestured, helping to move Carlos until their positions were reversed, and then he divested his lover of his own pants.

“I want this to be good for you, but don’t think—I don’t expect you to instantly reciprocate, okay? I’ve had time to learn how to do this without it hurting.” Cecil explained, feeling like he was handing out disclaimers.

“I appreciate that.” Carlos said, his hands fidgeting nervously with the air over his chest, like he was resisting the urge to cover himself.

Cecil rubbed his thumb over the apple of Carlos’s cheek, and then dove in.

He pressed the flat of his tongue against the underside of Carlos’s dick, then flicked it upwards. He lowered his lips around the head of it, using his tongue and the motions of his bobbing to peel back the skin covering Carlos’s cock head.

Carlos gaped wordlessly when Cecil pulled his mouth away and blew on the exposed head, and in smug response Cecil opened his mouth and all but speared himself on Carlos’s shaft, managing to take it almost to the base in a single motion.

The sounds Carlos made as he tried to decide between opening his eyes wide in surprise and letting them slip closed in pleasure were instantly top of the list, as far as Cecil’s favorite sounds were concerned. He didn’t know that he could explain them if he tried.

But he did endeavor to recreate them, but sliding backwards, his lips dragging along Carlos’s shaft with a little friction, much to Carlos’s delight, before he once more leaned forward and, with resolve, managed to swallow Carlos wholly.

Carlos’s head did fall backwards, missing the pillow he was propped on and landing against the headboard with a dull thud. Cecil snorted and what little pain Carlos had felt was forgotten in the tail of the contraction of Cecil’s throat when he did so.

He tapped at Cecil’s shoulder, causing Cecil to release his dick with a gasp and look up while he tried to catch his breath.

“I—as much as I—that’s so good. But. I’m not—I can’t last like that.” Carlos couldn’t seem to gather his thoughts, much less his words.

“How did you want to finish?” Cecil asked him, gentleness of his tone ruined by the slight hoarseness in his voice.

Carlos squirmed a little, then answered, his voice smaller than usual.

“Do you think… would you mind if I… could I be um. Inside of you?”

“I thought you would never ask.” Cecil replied smoothly. He got up to circle around the bed, and Carlos sat up, one hand outstretched and face stricken.

“I’m sorry I didn’t—“ The words came out of him in a rush, and Cecil was careful not to roll his eyes, certain it would undermine the goofy smile he was sporting. He sat down on the edge of the bed and tangled his fingers in Carlos’s.

“I’m not leaving you. I’m getting lube and condoms.” He told him firmly, once again feeling in control of the whole thing. Carlos seemed unsure, still, so he pressed on.

“I actually _like_ being on the receiving end. I’d tell you if I didn’t, okay?” He moved to pull away again, but Carlos tightened his grip on Cecil’s fingers.

“Cecil? Don’t let me—you won’t let me hurt you, will you?” He looked completely terrified at the prospect of it, even a little sick. Cecil couldn’t help but give in to the warm feelings that bubbled up inside of him.  He smooshed them together, a spontaneous hug that made Carlos laugh in surprise.

“The fact that you even asked means you’re probably going to be too careful for that. But I’ll show you how to get me ready, and I’ll walk you through it. I promise I’m not just going to expect you to know how everything works immediately.”

Carlos grinned and squeezed Cecil’s hand once more, just for a moment, before letting go. He watched Cecil, move, watched him gather a few condoms and his bottle of lube, watched as he set them back down on the bed next to Carlos.

He climbed on after them, and sat back on his heels, obviously not half so self conscious as Carlos was.

Carlos noted Cecil’s flagging erection, and he felt a sharp drop in his gut.

Cecil, of course, noticed Carlos noticing, and grinned teasingly.

“Oh, don’t you worry. That will be fixed in short order.” He lifted up the bottle of lube and tossed it back and forth between his hands for a moment, considering.

“Do you want to do this part, or would you like to watch me do it?”

“What is this part?” Carlos asked, and Cecil wiggled his fingers in response. Carlos blushed.

“Um, will you—you start, so I can see what you’re doing, and then I’ll… take over.”

“Perfect, Carlos.” Cecil agreed, and he opened the bottle, squirting some on his fingers to quickly swipe behind him, and then splurting a little more on his hand. He lay on his back, opening his legs wide and scooting so that Carlos was just beyond them.

He used his feet to push up, giving Carlos the best view he could, in the interests of being as educational as possible—after all, that was one sure way to keep a scientist interested, wasn’t it?

“Do you want a pillow? Would that… help?” Carlos was already grabbing one, so Cecil lifted his hips up off the bed, letting him slide it beneath him.

“That’s…”

“Perfect?” Offered Carlos wryly.

“No, a little too high, maybe don’t fold it up?” He offered, perfectly reasonably, he thought. Carlos, however, broke into a fit of what could only be described as giggles.

Once he was settled, he let the last giggle die down, and then he trailed a hand up over the tilt of his pelvis, barely brushed his balls, and then dipped down to his ass hole, watching Carlos for any sign of a reaction, good or otherwise.

But Carlos was just watching him intently, a look of awe and concentration on his face, his giggle smile half frozen there. It made Cecil want to laugh—he was taking it so seriously.

He circled his middle finger around his entrance, and then pressed into it, bearing down with his muscles while he did.

He heard Carlos’s inhale when he got his finger inside, and he pumped it in and out experimentally.

“I’m a little tight—it’s been a while for me. But don’t worry, that’s what prep is for.”

He pressed a second finger in, feeling the resistance. He wanted to get to the point where this, at least, came easily, before he let Carlos take over—not out of worry that he’d hurt him, of course, but more out of concern that Carlos would change his mind on the basis that he was too tight.

That in mind, he scissored  his fingers, stretching carefully, but as quickly as possible.

Once the plunging into himself went smoother, he began pushing in further, deeper, humping down into his hand a bit.

“Mm- Carlos? Would you like to—“

“Yeah.” Carlos said shortly, leaning forward. He watched as Cecil withdrew his fingers, and took in the tensed muscles in Cecil’s thighs when he touched him.

“Hey.” Carlos said, calling Cecil’s eyes up to his face. “Are you—if you change your mind, just say so. I don’t want…”

“I know. I will, if I do. But right now…” Cecil grabbed Carlos’s wrist, and guided his first finger in to the warmth of his now slightly fluttering muscles.

“ _Oh._ ” Carlos said. He pushed in until he couldn’t go any further and rotated his wrist, gauging Cecil’s reactions to his movements.

Realizing he’d been remiss in explaining one thing, Cecil began talking as Carlos inserted his second finger—thicker than his own, it came with a slight burning stretch that threw him off for just a second.

“Try a little more lube. Also, don’t be surprised if I— _AH._ ” Cecil swallowed the rest of the sentence when Carlos brushed his prostate in the process of pulling his fingers out to slick them.

His head jerked up and he went still.

“Are you--?” Carlos began, and Cecil shook his head.

“No, no it’s... it’s good. I was trying to tell you. My prostate is a little bundle of nerves that… when you touch it…” he shuddered a little, half theatrics and half looking forward to the next time Carlos did it.  “It’s good.” He repeated, and Carlos grinned.

“Well then.” He murmured, and slid his newly lubed fingers back into Cecil, beginning a hunt for his prostate.

It didn’t take him very long at all to find it.

Soon, Cecil was shaking, his leg muscles pulsing in time to Carlos’s stroking, concentrated on rubbing over and around his prostate, and he had to shake his head and take hold of Carlos’s hand and make him stop.

“It’s so good, Carlos, so good. But I need you to stop or I’ll cum.”

Carlos stopped immediately, withdrawing and looking nervous and guilty, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“What do you want me to do instead?” His eyes wandered down to Cecil’s cock, hard and straining against his stomach and beginning to leak there.

“Why don’t you give me another finger, just make sure I’m stretched enough to be ready to take you. And then…” He looked pointedly south on Carlos’s body, and his dark skin flushed darker.

“Okay.” He said, and if there was a note of strained eagerness in that word, Cecil let it slide. After all, it was his first time… and those were his fingers in Cecil’s ass.

The third was eased in, and again came that stretch, made more noticeable by the way Carlos was avoiding his prostate now. Cecil almost wanted it back. Almost.

He also considered introducing Carlos to anilingus, but decided that he had waited long enough, the first time might be a little soon for that, and if he was going to spring it on Carlos at any point, he should probably be the one doing it, to start with.

“Fuck me.” He said, not really having made the decision to let it slip. Too late now, though. He bit his lip, wondering if Carlos would be  offended by his crudeness.

It seemed not; Carlos was busily fumbling with one of the condoms, his hands shaking with excitement.

“Cecil, do you think you could help me? I’m sorry, I can’t…” He made a frustrated noise, and Cecil laughed and took it from him.

“It’s alright, hey, calm down. No one is grading you on any of this. Or, at least, not on any publicly accessible records. Don’t worry.”

Carlos looked unconvinced, though, so Cecil kissed him soundly, attempting to distract him from whatever worries were plaguing him now. Carlos responded beautifully, and Cecil was loathe to break it, but he needed to breathe—and apply the condom.

He rolled it on, careful to be sure that Carlos could observe the basics of the practice, for future use.

Not that he didn’t think he could figure it out himself, of course, because Carlos was _brilliant_ , but just to be sure. After all, Cecil himself was proof of how mushy one’s brain could get in this state.

That done, Cecil turned and got on the bed on his hands and knees, arching his back and turning to look back at Carlos, a teasing grin plastered all over his face.

He knew Carlos was nervous, but he was just excited.

“Um, can—would you lie down? I’d rather—I want to be able to see your face, while we.” Carlos said it like it was a full sentence, and Cecil let that slide, too. Mush brains and all.

“Beautiful Carlos, of course.” Cecil even shoved the pillow back under himself to help make it easier on them both, and spread his legs wide. He held them in place with his hands and shivered at how exposed he felt, how wanton.

Carlos brought his groin to Cecil’s ass, he could feel the heat of them touching, the pressure on his hungry hole, and Carlos leaned over between his legs to drop a kiss on his mouth.

“Help me fuck you.” He whispered, and Cecil was only too happy to comply, reaching between them to line Carlos up with his hole. Carlos tilted his hips and thrust in, and the head of him pushed momentarily against the ring of Cecil’s ass, then breached, and soon he was inside. He made short sawing motions, creating friction that forced Cecil’s eyes to droop shut while he pulled air in between his teeth.

Carlos, inversely, was panting gasps out of his mouth, and trying to keep his pace in check, his thrusts shallow and gentle and careful… and all Cecil wanted was for him to bottom out, the feel of him pressed inside as deep as he could go. He wanted to be filled, completely and utterly.

“Carlos.” He said, his voice well below even his radio range now.  “I want all of you.” It was a direction, a demand, and one that Carlos was only too happy to obey. He gripped Cecil’s legs and used them to pull himself in even as he thrust, the slap of their pelvises meeting suddenly the loudest sound in the room. Louder even than their hearts, pounding in their ears.

Carlos didn’t really pull out, just tilted his hips, thrusting shallowly, though deep within Cecil.

For his part, Cecil had abandoned his grip on his legs, and now was holding Carlos’s head, his fingers twined in his hair, meeting each thrust with a squeeze from within and a tilt of his hips to bear downwards, accepting all that Carlos could give him.

He didn’t expect to last for long. He didn’t expect that Carlos would, either. But it was gratifying when Carlos flung his weight forward, and caught himself on his forearms, on either side of Cecil’s body. He thrust in and out of Cecil from another angle now, brushing Cecil’s prostate in the process. Cecil’s hips jumped and he shook a little. Carlos pressed their foreheads together, his moist one touching the warmth and relative dryness of Cecil’s brow.

“I’m close.” He informed Cecil, with the air of a confession. It was apologetic, and a little embarrassed.

“Race you.” Cecil returned, punctuating it with a quick squeeze from within that caused Carlos’s hips to stutter, and his weight to bear downwards, pressing suddenly and strongly against Cecil’s prostate.

He threw his head back and cried out, small sounds following like a fox yipping as his own cum began streaking his stomach. Carlos reached between them to jerk at Cecil’s cock, encouraging the last of the semen out of it.

Cecil began pressing down into Carlos’s thrusts, dead set on forcing him over the edge.

“Come for me, my beautiful Carlos.” His words were slightly slurred by the power of his own orgasm, but he kept them coming all the same. “You’re so close now, and I want it so bad. Wanna feel you twitching deep inside, wanna see the look on your face when you see stars, want all of the Sheriff’s secret police who are listening in to be so jealous…”

That did it, and Carlos collapsed, letting his weight fit them snugly together while he emptied himself into his condom.

He remained laying there for a few moments, trying to catch his breath while Cecil played with his hair and looked entirely too pleased with himself.

Eventually, though, Carlos pulled himself up and out with a grunt and a sigh, and removed the condom.

“If you tie it in a knot before you throw it away, it won’t leak.” Cecil murmured, watching the progress of Perfect Carlos’s Perfect ass as he walked across the room to the trash.

There was a single drop of sweat making its way down his back, and Cecil had to debate between continuing to lay there bonelessly, and tackling Carlos to lick it up.

The afterglow won out, and he let himself drift on the warmth of their completion.

Carlos came back and crawled into bed beside him.

“Are you okay?” Cecil asked, mindful of Carlos’s silence.

“I should be asking you, shouldn’t I? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“Sweet Carlos, I don’t think you could. Did you enjoy it?” It felt awkward, having to ask—he thought it had been plain that Carlos had, but something was clearly weighing on his mind.

“I did!” Carlos spoke quickly. “You’re… wonderful, Cecil. Amazing. No I.. that was great. Thank you.”

“But?” Cecil prompted, sensing there was more. He worried what Carlos would think of some of Cecil’s less than vanilla tastes in bed, if simple missionary sex was driving him to such a state of distraction, but he tried not to be overly concerned with it. It was Carlos’s first time, after all.

“But I was just thinking… about your tentacles. Do they—that is, could you…” Carlos flushed, and Cecil smirked and pulled him in for another kiss, certain now more than ever that they were going to be just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to many requests, a second chapter is now up. Porn ahoy! 
> 
> Thank you all for your kind words. I look forward to writing more and hopefully seeing you all on my next story. Or, if you feel like you should be friends with a chick who writes about Carlos being a robot, come say hi at MostFacinorous.tumblr.com!


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